


everything I want is here with me

by dwarrowkings



Category: Camp Rock (2008)
Genre: M/M, Not Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarrowkings/pseuds/dwarrowkings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We're starting a band,” he says, and Shane can't even protest. “Jason's going to play bass and maybe Mandolin.” Nate slings his arm around Shane's shoulder, easy and sweet, and Shane lets himself wallow in it for a second. Nate's lips brush his cheek, high up on his cheekbone. His breath smells like gum, and it's warm ghosting across Shane's face. When it's gone, he misses it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything I want is here with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrsvc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsvc/gifts).



> For [mrsvc](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsvc) who wanted more Shane/Nate fic because apparently there isn't much at all. I lost control of this very quickly because I am insane. Also, they're not brothers in this version. They weren't brothers in the first movie, and that's the 'verse I'm working with here. This is also the most canon-compliant thing I have ever written, which is very very sad.  
> In which Nate and Shane (and Jason) meet at Camp Rock 3 years before the movie and Nate plays every instrument known to man.

Shane Gray was a normal kid before he went to Camp Rock. Or, he seemed like a normal kid before he went to Camp Rock. But secretly, and this is after his parents have put him to bed, he plugged his headphones into the CD player next to his bed and listened to his mom's Bruce Springsteen CD on repeat until he fell asleep. He had a notebook hidden in his school books of words that come to him at stupid times of the day. He seemed to be normal, if particularly studious, always hunched over a notebook in class, scribbling what could be notes if there weren't music floating in his head instead of formulas and facts.

He lied in the dark at night when it stormed and heard drums in the raindrops on his roof and cymbals in the thunder. He made up songs for every storm, and he fell asleep listening to them in his head instead of the Boss. Those werehis favorite nights.

His mom woke him up every day by taking his headphones off him and by saying “One of these days, you're going to strangle yourself in your sleep doing that.” But Shane never stopped, and he didn't die, and his mom smiles at him every day when she says it.

They got him guitar lessons for Christmas when he's 8 and he loved it. He overheard his mom and dad talking about it, and his dad said “We really can't afford it,” and his mom just looked so determined and said fiercely “He loves it so much, I can't take it away from him.” His mom got another job, and Shane had to stay by himself at home in the afternoons, but he used the time to practice his guitar.

He played so much in the first week that he had blisters on his fingers and had to put band-aids on his fingers just to play for his lesson.

His guitar teacher was impressed by his initiative, and Shane looked at Ms. Jeffries with the serious eyes of a determined child. “I'm going to play music every day.” She cooed over him, and pinched his cheek, but five years later when he told her he got into Camp Rock, she hugged him so tightly and said “Go. Play your music, baby.” Uncle Brown paid for it, when he realized that Shane had been playing guitar for years, and when he heard him play the first time, he finds his guitar teacher and hired her as a counselor for the camp.

“You did so well with Shane,” Shane heard Uncle Brown tell her , “that I couldn't not hire you.”

“Shane just loves music,” is what Ms. Jeffries said, “I just wanted him to have a good foundation.”

“You did good,” Uncle Brown says, and Shane's chest swelled so much he couldn't breathe.

–

On the first day of Camp, everyone swarms around him because his uncle is Brown Cesario, the founder of Camp Rock. But Shane is a boy who just wants to play guitar and maybe sing if anyone will let him, so he hides in his bunk until dinner and then he hides in the corner of the dining hall so he can't get bombarded from all sides.

A boy sits next to him, probably a year younger than him. His hair is very curly, and his mouth is plush, not that Shane notices, because he doesn't notice that about boys, not yet. The boy sits down, without saying “hi” or anything, and this other dude with straightened hair and kind of the same mouth sits across from them, filling the silence by talking about nothing and it's the most comfortable that Shane has been here all day. He wonders idly if they're related, because they look like they could be brothers, but he doesn't ask, because that'd be kind of rude.

Some girls try to sit next to the guy with the straight hair and the guy beside him looks up at them with the most serious look on his face and says “That seat's taken.”

“What?” the head girl says, her blonde head cocking to the side inquisitively, “No it isn't.” She moves to sit down, and immediately stands back up, squealing. “Move your feet!” She demands. Shane leans around the table to see, and the guy next to him is wiggling them in the chair. The girl screams in frustration, and stomps away in a huff.

“Thanks,” Shane says so softly it's hard to hear over the din in the hall.

“Nate,” the guy says, and then “Welcome.” He smiles, and Shane's chest feels like it's filling up with sunshine. Yeah, he thinks, this is definitely where I'm supposed to be.

“I'm Jason,” the guy across the table says, thrusting his hand over their trays. Shane takes it, and lets the guy shake his hand so hard that his whole arm wobbles up and down like a limp noodle. He almost knocks over his can of soda, and the guy lets his hand go, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says, blushing a little. “I get a little enthusiastic.”

Shane smiles back at him. “It's okay.”

“So what cabin are you guys in?” He asks, because the people in his cabin hadn't showed up yet, and he could technically stay with Uncle Brown, but he doesn't want to.

“Yours.” Nate says, shrugging a little and Jason picks up the slack.

“Yeah, we saw you hiding earlier, and didn't want to scare you or anything, so we just kept the people away until you were ready to come out.” Jason shrugs just like Nate had. Like this was a perfectly normal thing to do for a complete stranger. Come to think of it, there were bags at the other beds in the cabin, and Shane just hadn't thought about it earlier, what with his face smashed in his pillow and the hiding.

“Sorry,” Shane says, because it's their cabin too, they shouldn't have to do things like that for him.

“It wasn't a big deal, man,” Nate says, “you looked like you needed it.” These are the most words that Shane has heard him speak, and Shane notes that his voice is very, very good. He's also blushing a little, like he knows that it's a weird thing to do for a stranger, that people you don't know shouldn't catch on this quickly to what you can and can't deal with, but Shane doesn't think it's a bad thing, and Jason just shrugs it off, so.

Shane smiles at both of them, first Jason, because he's across from him, and then at Nate, leaning over and brushing their shoulders together tentatively. Nate leans into it, and Shane is so happy that he laughs out loud at nothing.

–

Even though Nate seems like he's the quiet one, once you get him talking, he never really shuts up. He knows so much about music, and he is always excited to talk about it. His parents have been teaching him classical piano since he was four, and to Shane, that seems like forever, but Nate also knows how to play the guitar and the drums, and Jason is teaching him Bass and the Mandolin, and he hedges on the subject of the school orchestra, like he learned how to play something, but doesn't want to tell Shane for fear of looking dumb. Shane hopes it's the Viola, because Shane likes obscure instruments, and Nate seems like the kind of serious boy that would choose the Viola, not realizing that no one cares about the Viola except composers.

Nate won't tell him, though, and Shane keeps his speculations to himself in case they're wrong.

They start talking about Springsteen, and then Nate starts talking Bon Jovi, who Shane has heard, but never really got into, and then he starts talking about Poison and all of these '80's bands and Shane nods along and vows to look them up later. Uncle Brown would probably know.

Nate seems to know what's up, though, because he breaks out his iPod, and Shane kind of jumps up and down inside himself for a second, because Nate has an iPod. Shane has never seen one this close before. He thinks, maybe, that Uncle Brown may have one, but all he's seen of Uncle Brown's music collection are the records neatly stacked on shelves that Shane isn't allowed to touch. But Nate takes it out like it's completely normal, and he hands one earbud to Shane and Shane is self-conscious about his ear gunk for all of five seconds before Nate makes a face at him and he puts it into his ear.

Nate sighs, and pulls it out, and puts it into the other one. “This way we can share.” He says, like it's nothing, but none of Shane's other friends have ever let him share their headphones (none of them even know he likes music, so it's not like it's a surprise) and Nate sticks his tongue out a little focusing very hard while his thumb flicks around the circle, around and around, until he pauses and flicks it back a little and clicks a button.

Shane hears nothing for a second, and Nate turns the volume up a little, and then, the most gentle piano starts playing, and Shane tears up before he can blink it away. It's so beautiful and sad, and he takes a deep breath, and chances a look at Nate. Nate's eyes are a little liquid too, but he's looking at Shane like he's new and bright and important. “This is Rachmaninoff.” Nate says, and Shane ignores the way his voice cracks, because Shane's not sure he could talk right now if someone paid him to.

He takes a deep breath, and lets the music calm him a little. “I like it,” he says softly. He's never really listened to classical music, but if it's all like this, he's sure he's missing out.

“I could play it for you, sometime,” Nate says, so shyly that it doesn't even seem like he's the same person.

“What?” Shane says, surprising himself (and Nate) with how loudly he says it. “You can play this?” he asks, because it's like Nate has been hiding things from Shane, and it's a sudden realization that Nate has a whole life away from Camp Rock in which he takes so many music lessons that he probably doesn't have an afternoon free ever. He's got this whole musical-prodigy thing going on, and Shane is just a guy with a guitar and some half-hidden lyrics in his room.

“I learned it last summer,” Nate says, sheepishly, like he's ashamed that he let Shane be this surprised and Shane feels like there's sunshine in his veins again. Nate wants to be friends with him. Nate thinks he's special. Shane hasn't been special since his mom brushed his hair away from his face and said “It'll be okay, baby. You can keep going to lessons,” when he had a broken arm the summer before the 6th grade and he cried because he couldn't hold his guitar.

Ms. Jeffries had spent the entire summer teaching him how to actually read music instead of the tabulature.

When he'd gotten that pretty well, she started making him write out songs during the week. Songs he heard on the streets, songs he liked, and he had to bring them into her, pages and pages of transcribed notes that he hears, and she'd play them to see if he got them right.

She told him he has perfect pitch. Shane didn't know what that meant, but she said it like it's a good thing, so he'd blushed and thanked her.

Shane was in a hurry one day, so he stuffed all of his music into a notebook and didn't even realize which one it was until Ms. Jeffries broke it out and started to play the song that he wrote that afternoon instead of doing his math homework.

As she played it, her face turned down, concentrating very hard as she played.

“What's this?” she asked, and Shane panicked because he thought she didn't like it, and she wasn't ever meant to hear it, and he was so embarrassed.

“Just something I wrote, I know it's stupid, but I couldn't stop thinking about it last night, and then I wrote it this afternoon after school and I just stuffed all my music into the notebook and didn't realize it was the wrong one until I got here.” He was blushing so hard that he started to sweat a little, and Ms. Jeffries looked at him like he broke her.

“You,” she started, and paused for a second. Swallowed, “You wrote this?” She tilted her head a little, nodded her creased forehead towards Shane a little.

“Y-yes?” He said like a question, because that was a very serious look on her face, and it kind of freaked him out a little.

“Shane,” she said, “this is very good.” She said it like she wanted him to believe her, and not like adults tell kids that things are good just because they tried. She sounded like she's trying to convince him, and Shane calmed down a little bit.

“Really?” he asked, laughing a little, because it'd really just been something that he'd written out and stuffed in the middle of the other things he had for her, and he hadn't meant for her to see it at all.

“Shane,” she said, grasping his hand, “You're an amazing kid.”

He feels more special now, with Nate's dark eyes looking at him like he's afraid that Shane will leave. Shane takes the hand that's not holding his iPod and presses it to his chest. It's a weird thing to do, but he does it, and Nate's eyes go wide, his palm pressed warmly to the left side of Shane's chest right over his heart, and Shane thinks that his chest feels so bright it might explode. His heart beats rapidly, not quite in time with the music, but steady enough to not clash with the tempo. He holds Nate's hand there, palm wrapped around the back of Nate's hand, fingers curling under the palm a little.

“Okay,” Nate says, like he's finishing a conversation instead of starting one.

“Okay,” Shane agrees. He drops Nate's hand, but Nate keeps it up, pressed against Shane's chest for a beat, two, three, four, before pulling away.

–

They scoot their beds closer together, maybe six inches or so, unnoticeable, but very useful in that Shane can listen to Nate's iPod with Nate as they're falling asleep, with it plugged into the wall between their beds so it doesn't die.

Nate normally chooses the music, because he's got Things to show Shane, and Shane rolls with it, because Nate gets so excited about showing him things and he falls in love with all of them. His favorite, though, is Brendan Benson, and he requests that when Nate looks at him blankly when they go to choose the music. Nate's look back is fond, and Shane knows he's chosen well, chosen one of Nate's favorites, and Shane falls asleep wanting to hold Nate's hand across the gap between their beds, but he doesn't dare move his hand from his chest.

He sings along, sometimes, softly because he isn't sure, and this isn't why he's here, but Nate hears and looks at him like he's been hiding things.

“Where did you learn that,” he says, and Shane shrugs. “Seriously.” Nate levels a stare at him, his hands on Shane's shoulders. “I've been taking vocal lessons since before I learned to play piano, and I can't do that.”

“I just,” he starts, “I just listened to the music, Nate.” He defends, because it sounds like Nate is jealous, but he can't be, because Shane has heard him sing, and it's the best thing that Shane has ever heard. Nate is so much better than Shane, but he doesn't seem to realize it.

Nate's face becomes a mask. “We're starting a band,” he says, and Shane can't even protest. “Jason's going to play bass and maybe Mandolin.” Nate slings his arm around Shane's shoulder, easy and sweet, and Shane lets himself wallow in it for a second. Nate's lips brush his cheek, high up on his cheekbone. His breath smells like gum, and it's warm ghosting across Shane's face. When it's gone, he misses it.

Shane lets himself put his hand on his bed that night, curled on his side instead of his back, looking at Nate in the dark. Nate flings his arm out in his sleep, his arm hanging off the bed awkwardly, and Shane reaches over to brush his fingertips across Nate's knuckles.

Nate grabs his hand, and Shane jumps, but not enough for Nate to let go. Nate squeezes Shane's hand, as Handel's Water Music swirls to a close. Shane squeezes back, and Nate sighs.

“Night,” he says.

“Night,” Shane says, hoping that Nate can't hear the way his voice shakes.

–

They win Final Jam with the song that Shane and Nate write with Jason. Shane says something about being drawn to people without even realizing it, and Nate's eyes flash open with sudden inspiration and he's off.

“Can you,” Nate starts. Stops. Starts again, “Can you sing this?” Nate hands him sheets of music, and Shane looks at it, imagines the music swelling around him, the crowd cheering, and his chest so full of air he's dizzy with it.

“Yeah,” he says, “I think I can.”

It's a duet, but that doesn't stop them.

–

Shane goes off the rails a little, because all he wanted to do was play music, and there's all this other stuff going on and when he goes on set to film his music video, all they want him to do is make out with this girl, and this is not what he wanted. He doesn't have creative control, he can't even decide what is on his own freaking album, nor can Nate, or Jason, and Shane just isn't going to deal with it right now.

He walks out.

Nate finds him first, and puts his hand on Shane's back, but Shane shakes him off. Nate looks betrayed, but hides it quickly.

“I can't do it, Nate,” he says, almost crying. “I can't take it anymore.”

“Okay,” Nate says, like he's decided something, and he pulls away like he hasn't ever before. After he leaves, Shane sobs once into his hands, and feels like throwing up.

He puts Springsteen on, and doesn't cry himself to sleep, but it's a close thing.

The next day, the label says he has to go do volunteer work at Camp Rock.

“Go back to your roots,” they say, like Camp Rock is his roots, and not hours spent listening to the same CD over and over. Shane thinks they know nothing, and he hates it.

Nate says that it'll be good for him, and Nate knows what Shane's actual roots are, so he does it, even though he thinks it's dumb. Whatever, he doesn't have to like it.

–

He calls Nate every night, at first to complain, because this was totally Nate's fault. But then he starts talking excitedly to Nate, and he thinks that maybe it's been good.

Maybe this will be good for him and Nate, he secretly hopes, because Mitchie is great and she makes him feel kind of like Nate had, in the beginning, and then Nate is there, and yeah. That's how he feels still.

Nate's smile is so relieved, and his mouth is so soft when Shane finally kisses Nate, that night, in his room. Nate makes a noise like he's dying, and Shane pulls away, but Nate licks his lips and pulls Shane back in for a kiss that is more than the brush of lips that Shane's kiss had been.

“I missed you for so long,” Nate says, right up against Shane's mouth, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of Shane's neck, and his voice cracking in the middle.

“I was only gone for a couple of weeks.” Shane laughs, pressing another kiss to Nate's bottom lip.

“You've been gone for a while,” Nate says, accusingly, and Shane doesn't think he means physically. Nate sounds so sad, though, like Shane acting like a jerk had physically hurt Nate.

“I'm sorry,” he says, realizing now that he'd all but abandoned Nate and Jason for stupid things. He hates that he only realizes now how selfish he'd been.

“You're here now,” Nate says, pressing their foreheads together, “stay for a while.”

“I'll stay for however long you want,” Shane says, and it's a big promise, but all these small moments feel big because Nate threads them together, becoming this huge presence in his life, one he couldn't live without.

Nate sighs happily, and hugs Shane so hard it's like he's trying to crawl into Shane's skin.


End file.
